Logica aims to cut risk in payments.

In an effort to limit financial risk, Logica North America Inc. has introduced software that lets banks automatically check payments and messages against a file of blocked accounts.

Based in Boston, Logica North america is a subsidiary of the international consulting and systems integration firm Logica PLC in London. Logica introduced the software, called HotScan, in Geneva earlier this month.

Hotscan helps U.S. banks comply with the regulations set forth by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Asset Control.

When a bank sends a payment to a blocked account, it can be fined hundreds of thousands of dollars.

According to Deborah Bombaci, an executive at Logica, many U.S. banks rely on manual lists and checking only a limited number of transactions.

HotScan checks all transactions against a bank's data base of blocked entities and flags any transaction that contains a blocked entity for manual review.

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